A successful inaugural season behind, Unrivaled now looks for more ways to grow. Starting a league from scratch with a brand-new format and making it stick in the women’s sports landscape is no small feat. But it happened. And the fact that Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart’s brainchild not only survived but thrived in its first run says everything. Now while Unrivaled is climbing the ladder at full speed, the WNBA still seems to be…well, trying to find the staircase.
It all started in 2022, at a cozy steakhouse in NYC, as Stewart sat with Collier’s husband, Alex Bazzell. He pitched an idea that could flip the script—keep WNBA stars stateside during the winter instead of shipping them off overseas. Stewie, who spent years hooping abroad in the off-season, was instantly hooked. Fast-forward through months (actually, years) of planning, and Unrivaled was born.
It introduced record salaries—around $220K per player and 15%b equity. Yes, players own a part of the league. That’s something the W still doesn’t offer. And as the WNBA heads into its 29th season with CBA talks looming, Unrivaled handed them a blueprint. Then, we saw that Unrivaled built a private, professional-grade training facility from the ground up—in just a few months. Added all the extra stuff players actually care about—sauna, customized recovery, and the one that won everyone’s hearts…Daycare.
When it came to sponsorships, they didn’t just borrow NBA ties. They brought in new names to women’s hoops—Sephora, Wayfair, Samsung Galaxy, Morgan Stanley, VistaPrint. Companies that saw what Unrivaled was doing and wanted in. Like Collier said, “this is what’s possible when you have players’ brand buy-in.”
Jan 17, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Napheesa Collier (24) of the Lunar Owls drives toward the basket as Courtney Vandersloot (25) of the Mist defends during the first half of the Unrivaled women’s professional 3v3 basketball league at Wayfair Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn ImagesBut you know while this all already raised questions for WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, recently fans started noticing something else that sets Unrivaled apart. And it’s hitting harder than expected: social media.
Remember those slick edits? The behind-the-scenes clips? The gym videos? Unrivaled kept us fed all off-season long. With over 30 stars in one city, content exploded. Edits dropped on time, stories rolled in daily, and fans actually felt close to the players. And now…the WNBA season is about to begin, the draft is here and fans are back to asking—where’s the content? After a dry off-season (yet again), folks expected the W to follow Unrivaled lead.
But the buzz is kinda quiet. So Unrivaled didn’t just raise the bar for salaries and amenities. It raised it everywhere. The WNBA might want to take a few notes because fans aren’t exactly being subtle about it
WNBA faces backlash over draft content
One fan said it best: “Unrivaled could teach the WNBA marketing a thing or two.” From the jump, Unrivaled’s content raked in a wild 31 million views across all Bleacher Report platforms in its first weekend alone. On B/R W Sports TikTok, their stuff brought in 59% more views than the average TikToks on the platform.
The main Unrivaled social account now has around 400,000 total followers, and the 36 players gained nearly a million followers combined since January. If that’s not marketing genius, what is? Meanwhile, over at WNBA it’s been crickets. A day away from the draft and all we got was a formal invitees intro videos, a short arrival video, and that’s it. One fan wrote, “The social media content is lacking this year for the wnba draft. Like the admin is so a-s.”
Fans are begging for behind-the-scenes, for day-before excitement, for little peeks into the biggest chapter of these young hoopers’ lives. Especially coming from college, where social media pages drown us in content. Another fan chimed in, “The promotion of the WNBA Draft which is tomorrow and the content surrounding this class has been sadly underwhelming…”
While team pages tried to keep fans entertained with throwback draft clips, the collective WNBA effort is…meh. This is crazy, considering the league is riding a historic high. Most-watched regular season in 24 years. Most-watched Finals game in 25. Record merch sales, digital views, attendance. If now isn’t the time to milk it on socials, then when?
Unrivaled could teach the WNBA marketing a thing or two.
— Azzi Fudd is a National Champion (@Yourbestbreak) April 13, 2025
Another added, “We were so spoiled by Unrivaled.” They kept the content flowing like clockwork, even after the season ended. That consistency worked and reflected in the viewership numbers. Unrivaled averaged 221,000 viewers on TNT and truTV, reached 11.9 million total viewers, and gave TNT its 10 most-watched women’s basketball games ever.
One fan even dropped the hard truth: “You can tell they don’t actually give a s-t about this draft class.” The narrative is that this class only has one star—Paige Buekcers—and lacks the Caitlin/Angel-level fire. Because last year’s draft content wasn’t at all dry. But that kind of bias isn’t sitting well with fans, especially when Unrivaled just proved how every player, with the right push, can become a draw.
But as Fever’s Lexie Hull put it, “This league is meant to be an aid to the WNBA. They’re supposed to live in cohesion.” Even Engelbert and Bethany Donaphin showed up in Florida for Unrivaled. As Stewie said, hopefully they saw everything the new league is doing right. Because at the end of the day, the goal isn’t to compete, it’s to grow the game, for everyone.
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